LONDON: UK Business leaders have accused the government of a “tax on talent” after they announced a visa levy for companies employing foreign workers, to fund apprenticeships.
The Queen’s Speech disclosed that the Government will conduct a consultation on a “skills levy” to fund apprenticeships for British and EU workers.
The Conservatives believe that Britain has been forced to rely on migrants because of a shortage of home-grown skills in broad areas such as nursing.
Under the plans, companies employing migrants from outside the European Union would be forced to pay a visa levy. That money would then fund apprenticeships for British and EU citizens.
But John Longworth, the head of the British Chambers of Commerce, accused ministers of deploying a “blunt instrument” which will stop businesses recruiting “top talent”.
The Government repeatedly missed its target to reduce net migration below 100,000 a year in the last parliament.
Earlier this month the Office for National Statistics announced that net migration had risen to 318,000 last year, only 2,000 less than the highest figure on record.
Mr Longworth said: “This is a tax on business and a tax on talent. It impedes business being able to get the right talent. It is a bit like when Ed Miliband decided to put a levy on business by making them employ an apprentice for every time they employed someone from abroad.
It’s trying to tackle immigration by other means because the Government know they are going to have real difficulty. The general position of business would be that anything that’s a barrier to employing the right labour and the best talent is not a good thing.”
Mr Cameron said earlier this month: “For too long we have had a shortage of workers in certain roles: engineers, nurses, teachers, chefs.
We haven’t had enough British people training in these areas and companies have had to fill the gaps with people from overseas. We should be getting to a place where we only bring in workers from outside the EU where we have genuine skills shortages or require highly specialised experts.”
The visa levy was in the immigration Bill, under which foreign workers will have their wages seized by police and face deportation without appeal if they are in Britain illegally. The Government will give councils powers to evict migrants and force banks to check accounts against databases of people who could be in the country illegally.
